DA: It is unique, as a membership association for both. When we separated from the WYSE Travel Confederation [in 2011] we had our first board meeting to agree an amicable withdrawal and to decide exactly what “New ALTO” was going to be and what it was not going to be. We decided we weren’t trying to compete with ICEF and StudyWorld and the many trading platforms. We also decided that we weren’t a quality assurance  association.

“As an industry, we should be able to leverage better corporate rates”

So we had to decide where ALTO could provide the most significant benefit to the language travel industry. And we were unanimous in our desire to become more of a a professional association. Every industry has its own association whether you’re a lawyer, a teacher or a doctor you become a member of a professional association and we can have one for study travel. We can all work together and help to develop the industry as a whole.

And together we can help increase the size of the whole study travel industry.

The PIE: And how have you done that?

DA: We haven’t achieved that quite yet. [laughs]

The PIE: Or how would you do that?

DA: One of the key goals of ALTO is to collate more comprehensive industry data. There’s lots of industry data but much of it is anecdotal really. There is very little global data available. We are looking to instigate the first full benchmarking exercise for the industry.  And the aim is to get as many schools and agencies as we can, members and non-members, to contribute to this exercise using an independent organisation like PwC or Deloitte to manage it. Everyone contributes anonymously, with detailed analysis as a result.

The PIE: What is breakdown of your members in terms of agents and education?

DA: It’s about 43% schools, 30% agents, 17% association and 10% service providers.

The PIE: You want to enable commercial advantage for your members too, as I understand?

DA: Yes indeed. When we began looking at running our own association events, we were considering sponsorship. And started wondering how much we all spend on foreign exchange in a year? How many bed nights do we use in hotels as an industry around the world? On airlines, the volume of people that we are transporting, not just in our work force, but our students, is huge. We should be able to get some sort of collective buying power (and interesting sponsorship). And as an industry, we should be able to leverage better corporate rates.

“How many bed nights do we use in hotels as an industry around the world?”

We are currently talking to a couple of organisations which will hopefully enable members to buy preferential forward rates of currency, something we used to do when I worked at IAE Global [agency headquartered in Korea], buying forward rates from won.

The PIE: That would be a big membership perk.

DA: Yes, and we’re talking to Mariott at the moment as well, just as an initial investigation to see if they are able to give us a competitive corporate rate for all ALTO members.

The PIE: It’s obviously difficult to manage a global association. Would you say the highlights are the professional development seminars that you run or do you have much more offline activity?

DA: At the moment the professional development days are probably what people see as one of the two biggest benefits.

Verne Harnish (right) with ALTO Association Manager Reka Lenart (centre) and an ALTO member

As well as the tremendous development opportunities these days give us, if you look at them from a financial perspective, they also offer great value. Attending an event with speakers (such as Verne Harnish) could cost US$500 and US$1000 dollars per participant. At €1,400 a year for ALTO membership, you only need to go to two events and you have already made your money back, so to speak.

The PIE: And the other benefit?

DA: One of the other benefits is networking…

The idea has been that we want to create networking opportunities for the owners and leaders of the agencies, schools and associated industries, and in two ways. Our website has been built to enable members to communicate, you can search for other members, find their personal details, and message them all from within the site. We have a mobile app as well, so you can search for any of our members and you can message them – you can get it on iTunes.

And then we have face-to-face networking which could be as simple sitting around a table with your competitors and your clients and being open and honest in discussing the industry.

The PIE: That brings us on to the NYC Weekender as I’ve been referring to it. As a weekend-long event, is the idea that you could have breakfast with someone casually – as well as more structured events?